By Rodrigo Brandão

Twin brothers Fábio Moon and and Gabriel Bá were born in São Paulo, Brazil, on June 5, 1976, and have dedicated themselves to the comicbook / graphic novel world for the last 15 years. In 2009, Fabio and Gabriel’s career entered a new phase, when the two won multiple awards at the Eisner ceremony at Comic-Con International in San Diego: Bá won trophies for Best Limited Series with Gerard Way for “The Umbrella Academy,” and Moon earned Best Digital Comic with Joss Whedon for “Sugarshock!”

Cover for Daytripper #1

Following a year of acclaim and breakout hits, Moon and Bá are publishing the 10-part limited series Daytripper with the acclaimed Vertigo label of DC Comics. While the Warner Bros.-owned DC Comics is best known as the company behind iconic brands such as Batman and Superman, Vertigo head Keren Berger was one of the main editors who, in the 1980s, revolutionized the comic book world by bringing a wave of British talent to the American mainstream – and giving them total creative freedom. The result was not only a series on individual works (like Alan Moore’s Watchmen and the Swamp Thing series) that stand as watersheds of the comicbook canon, but also a complete redefinition of the very limits of the medium.

Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá’s Daytripper, which is currently on comic book stores all over the United States, is a thrilling, cliffhanging narrative that has left even the most veteran comic book readers wondering what comes next. And its unique mix of magical realism and latin-noir storyline is unlike anything else currently available in the US market.

But while Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá have created one of the most authentic and beautifully layered depictions of Brazilian life and culture in the history of American comics, it is clear to anyone following the time-bending adventures of obituary writer Brás de Oliva Domingos (the lead character in Daytripper), that the real passion of Fábio and Gabriel’s life is the world of comic books.

This interview was conducted over email, in late February 2010, exclusively for BrazilNYC.

Daytripper (from the cover of an upcoming issue)

Rodrigo Brandão: Although I have only read three issues of your 10-part comic series Daytripper, I can already say that there’s nothing like it in the mainstream comic market. And within the Vertigo canon, the book often reminds me of their classic titles: it’s as introspective as J.M. DeMatteis’ Moonshadow and it also has the kind of suspenseful hooks that made titles like Y: The Last Man so popular in the US. And yet, Daytripper is nothing like these books, since your story is set in a contemporary time and in a real place (i.e. Brazil). So, how did you pitch Daytripper to the head of Vertigo? Do you see it as part of a specific genre, or are you purposefully trying to subvert some narrative conventions here?

Gabriel: I think the world of comics has been changing for the last 10 years and we are among a new breed of authors, let’s say, that have learned with the old ways and are taking it a step further. Publishers are aware of these changes and they are opening doors to new and different things. Vertigo has been the house of different creators who had serious things to say and our efforts to tell our own stories met with their interest on fresh ideas. Bob Schrek, the editor at the time, had been following our career from the beginning and saw that we were ready to handle a bigger project and knew that Vertigo would allow us to do that. He asked us to pitch him a story, just do what we do, with bits of magical realism and weird portraits on real subjects. We came out with three or four ideas and Daytripper was the one that caught their attention, preciselly because it was different from everything else out there.

Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

RB: This is also a story with universal appeal and yet, very much grounded in a Brazilian reality. And so far, this is one of the most accurate and poetically sketched representations of Brazilian life and culture in the history of mainstream American comics. It’s detailed enough to please those who know about Brazilian culture, but it never feels grounded in small national/local issues. How did you strike that balance? And how do you maintain a certain integrity of representation while writing a quintessentially universal story?

Fábio: We like to build our stories in layers. The most superficial layers are more universal, dealing with feelings and events everybody can relate, connect and understand. More deeper layers in the story, less obvious, can enhance details of brazilian culture, of our way of life and the way we deal with our emotions. Other layers can provide visual information for those who know the place and the kind of people we’re showing in the story. There’s something for every one in it.

Gabriel: Brazil is a huge country and there are a lot of different realities to it, lots of different layers and to try to portrait all of it would be a mistake and would only make the story weaker. We don’t have a complete view of the country either, since the life of someone living on the northeast is entirely different form mine. We base ourselves on Brazilian literature and how it portrays our culture, our country. It’s not one author or one book that does that, but each book is true to a little slice of the people it’s focusing. So writers like Machado de Assis, Guimarães Rosa, Jorge Amado and Nelson Rodrigues have “created” Brazil through their book that are chronicles of their time and times past. Our story focus on people nowadays and how they relate and little things in life that we believe everyone can connect to, like family, friendship, work and love and that’s what make it more universal, but it’s also set in Brazil so that gives us more elements to embelish world we’re “creating”. We are not telling true stories, but we’re aiming at true emotions and feelings, so setting the story in Brazil was the way of being true to ourselves in order to achieve that.

A page of Daytripper

RB: There hasn’t been a lot of poverty and crime in Daytripper yet, and I’m sure that’s pretty much what many expect of a Brazilian comic made by Brazilian artists. Did you ever felt pressured to make a “City of God” comic book?

Fábio: The story we want to tell is not about Brazil, it’s just set in Brazil, so the first thing for us is the story and what we want to say.

Gabriel: As I said earlier, there are a lot of different layer on Brazil and we don’t want to tackle everything just because we have the opportunity here. It’s not a matter of “let’s get it all in there”, but more like “let’s chose the right stuff to put it in there”. We have something to say with this series and we are only going to show aspects of life here that will help telling the story we have to tell.

RB: Your main character seems tortured at times; maybe a little frustrated with his own choices. He is also an artist who never managed to give himself fully to his own passions and art work. Are there pieces of this narrative that are inspired by real-life experiences in your lives? Is some of this auto-biographical?

Fábio: The story isn’t auto-biographical, as much as it might seem that way. If anything, we sometimes base ourselves in emotions we had doing something, or experiencing something, and we transferred these emotions to the story, in a different context. We relate more with the way people feel than with what people do, and this way, more people can also relate with the characters, because not everybody wants to be a writer, but everybody has fallen in love once, felt frustrated, confused, happy and stuff like that.

Gabriel: We want to show how there are certain key moments on our lifes when the smallest thing can affect all the decisions we will make in the future. There are not always happy times, good moments and ocasionally we only learn when we’re hurting or broken.

RB: I think it’s fantastic that Vertigo has so many International artists in their fold. Besides the usual American talent (e.g. Brian Wood and Jason Aaron), they also have Canadian (Sweet Tooth’s Jeff Lemire), British (Hellblazer’s Peter Milligan), Argentinean (100 Bullets’ Eduardo Risso) talent (to name a few nationalities) working in some of their best and most successful titles. Do you think it’s important for publishing companies to be open to talent from all cultures? Why? And how hard has it been to write and draw a comic book that has as its first and most important audience the American comic book reader?

Fábio: As a medium, comic books are still discovering what they’re capable of, and I think right now it’s easier to look all around the world for different views and approaches on creating and telling stories, and publishers have been making this effort to expand their horizons in order to get a richer amount of contributing authors. Authors also now can easily work from home and send the work anywhere in the world, so it is also easier to get started and communicate with publishers from other countries.

Gabriel: I think it’s important to be open to different points of view and that’s what authors from other countries and cultures have to offer. I think Vertigo understands that from the very beginning of it’s existence and had all those English writers that were telling stories on a whole different way than the american ones at the time. Slowly, the whole American market has been opening its doors to foreign titles and authors and there’s no reason to close your eyes to that, avoid that or go back. It’s a great time for comics worldwide. Everything is changing and publishers, authors and the public gotta get in tune with it.

The cover of Daytripper #2

RB: Have you been at all intimidated by the fact that the great Karen Berger is going to be your editor? Did you have a chance to get some feedback from other Vertigo writers, like Peter Milligan and Mike Carey?

Fábio: Working with editors in the advantage against being an independent creator, because they have years of experience to help you achieve your vision, and she’s been great helping us feel at home at Vertigo. As far as other creators, it’s like Bá said, we’re here, in a isolated environment, and so far this has been a marvelous way to create our story. When it’s all finished, maybe we’ll see that other creators think about it.

Gabriel: Karen is a sweet woman, at least every time we meet she’s been really kind to us. She is, indeed, really serious about everything Vertigo publishes and doesn’t let us take for granted the fact that we’re putting our story out with them. We haven’t heard from any other writers at Vertigo yet, since we live in Brazil and have very little contact with them.

RB: What are some of your most important influences in the comic book world?

Fábio: Will Eisner was a huge influence in my art, it the way characters “act” on the page, as well as Laerte, Dave Mazzuchelli and Moebius. I can think of something I learned from many artists, from Mignola to Frank Miller, Toppi, Hugo Pratt, Dave McKean, Eduardo Risso, Breccia, Muñoz, Katsuhiro Otomo and Goseki Kojima, but for me the greatest thing was being able to read great work from creators I also met personally, like Jeff Smith, Terry Moore, Becky Cloonan and Paul Pope. Being in a artistic community has been essential for me to always keep striving for more, always keep the conversation going forward, always trying harder. On this matter, my biggest influence was my brother, because I think neither one of us would be doing the kind of work we do if we didn’t work together the way we do our entire life.

Gabriel: Artistically, I like the works of Laerte Coutinho (Brazil) for its looseness and expressionism, also a great grasp of black and white art; Mike Mignola and Sergio Toppi (Italy)for their composition and design on every piece, be it a cover, pinup or comic page; Eduardo Risso for his master storytelling, being able to turn the dullest dialogue on the a beautiful page; and Frank Miller for expanding the boundaries always. I have a deep respect for Jeff Smith and Terry Moore for doing it all by themselves with great integrity and majesty; Craig Thompson for the seriousness he puts on is work and Becky Cloonan for showing that despite all that, we can have a lot of fun working on all kinds of comics; Last, about writers, I really respect Kazuo Koike and Brian Azzarello as authors who have something to say and keep the ultimate respect for their craft, who inspire me to put more effort and honesty on my stories.

Listen to this podcast interview with Fabio and Gabriel made by Fanoff.com

Alter Ego Comic Cast: Extra (Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon)

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